Nina Designs Blog Partner

I'm so excited to share my pieces with you as a Nina Designs Blog Partner.  They sent me a yummy assortment of natural bronze components, leather and ribbon.

First up are the these peacock inspired earrings. I used the Three Teardrop Links in this pair of earrings. I wanted to create a unifying element with the hammered metal pieces in a gunmetal black finish.  The bronze with the black metal create a sexy contrast that I'm digging!  I tapered the texture to mimic the design of the teardrops and combined them with my disk beads in a peacock feather pattern. I used the bronze ear wires from Nina Designs, they are handmade in Bali.  Love, love, love them!

This pendant used the same design elements from the earrings with an Infinity Link from Nina Designs as the a touch of shimmer to the necklace.  

This pendant explores those same design elements and features the softest leather I've ever seen.  It's smooth and supple, thin and completely uniform.  The color is wonderful!  I went with simple adjustable knots for this pendant.  The wearer can sport it long or short.  I also braided some of this leather and it looked great, I just didn't have a chance to work into something yet.  I would use this leather in my regular line of jewelry - be sure to check out all the great colors carried by Nina Designs.

Mixing the black and bronze this minimalist design offers some striking results.  A toggle clasp in a leaf design is tied together with tiny faceted brass nugget beads.  Again I can't get over the fine quality of the findings, there are no seems on the design and the detail is just lovely!

Now we move on to the garden!  These leaf charms and tiny lotus petal charms work beautifully as earrings. paired up with Czech glass, brass rings and my polymer clay beads in a purple floral design.

Love the color of this sheer silk ribbon!  The texture is soft and delicate.  I mixed gunmetal, brass and elements of the raw brass finish to create this pendant. 

I was quite smitten with these delicate and fine branch coral charms.  How perfect are they with my starfish charms?  They make me long to go snorkeling off the shores of Cozumel! 

And this doesn't have anything to do with Nina Designs, I just couldn't have a pair of earrings hanging around without a partner! 

Now as if I wasn't impressed enough with Nina Designs I would be remiss if I didn't mention what a good karma kind of company they are too!  From fair trade practices with Bali and Thialand, to green efforts like planting trees, to mircoloans and philanthropy - this is a company that you can support knowing they are working hard to create beautiful products with earthy-friendly and people-friendly business practices.  I like that!

The other thing about Nina Designs that has my beady fingers twitching?  All their sweet nature inspired designs - how Humblebead-y perfect are the leaves, branches, birds and sea-inspired charms and pendants from Nina's?  I can hardly stand it and plan to use some of them in my summer line of jewelry.

Head on over to Nina's and when you place an order, tell them that Heather Powers' sent you.  That will get you $5.00 off your first order if you are a new customer! 

The materials above were provided as part of the Nina Designs blogging program. The author of this blog has not received any payment from above-mentioned company. The post above represents only personal opinion of the blog author.

Wellness Words Jewelry Challenge

When I saw Tracy Statler's Inspired Change: Wellness Word Challenge, I knew I wanted to jump in since it so fit in with my word for this year: Connect.  2013 is the year I work at making connections in all aspects of my life, both online and offline, personally and professionally, physically and spiritually. 

My defacto way of dealing with stress is to retreat inward and create.  Which is awesome fun, but not a healthy way of dealing with overwhelming issues in my life. And with moving to a new town, while I'm able to connect more with my family than I have in years, I need to start making some friends and connections in our tiny town. Which honestly, that has been a struggle for me because I work from home in the middle of no where!

For my piece of jewelry, I created a bracelet with my tree house bead to remind myself to get out of the house and safety of my nest to make connections.  The copper oak leaves are there to remind me that change is good, and working on making connections will bring all sorts of good changes into my life.  The world is a much better place when we are helping each other along, cheering, lifting each other up and sharing in our struggles.

Take some time and visit the other jewelry artists who are committed to making a positive change in 2013 and their jewelry designs to inspire that change:

acreativeforce.blogspot.com

alankarshilpa.blogspot.com

allprettythings.ca

anniamaebisuteria.blogspot.com.es/

apolymerpenchant.com

beadlolabead.blogspot.com/

beadrecipes.wordpress.com

centsations.wordpress.com

clay-space.com/

creativeatelier.net

elliesbijoux.com

emakdesigns.com

erinsiegel.com

etsy.com/shop/shamaen

facebook.com/hotsouthernmessdesigns

facebook.com/soquilidesigns

fairiesmarket.blogspot.com

firstimpressiondesign.blogspot.com

gemsbyjudy.com

glasstastreasures.blogspot.com

handcraftedserenity.blogspot.com

humblebeads.com

facebook.com/azuresunshines

facebook.com/whdalaska

jeanetteblix.com

kimmykats.com

kymhunterdesigns.blogspot.com

lisayangjewelry.com

macmillanmarie.blogspot.com

makebraceletsblog.com

miabellasoul.com

misheldesigns.com

mycreativechallenge.blogspot.com

noseycritters.blogspot.com

pixiloo.blogspot.com

sandivolpe.com

sharonsjewelrygarden.blogspot.com

shaterra.etsy.com

shinylittlethings.blogspot.com

shymedesign.se

shymessmycken.blogspot.se

simpleearthcreations.com

soultosubstance.com

suebeads.com

sunshinebliss.com

sweetbeadstudio.com

sweetwillowdesigns.blogspot.com

thebeadingyogini.com

thestudiosublime.com

treasures-found.blogspot.com

twitter.com/ldymlivelystone

vault31.blogspot.com

veradesigns.blogspot.com

New Work - Spring is Around the Corner

 Just a few new things I've added to the ol' Etsy shop in case you are in need of a boost of spring like I am!  Spring in Paris - that's a nice daydream...

Peacock Feathers - I have them in cuff connectors and pendants.  Love them!!! Did you know peacock feathers were used as a symbol of protection?  They were often used as ornaments on thrones to protect royalty and in depicted in the wings of angels to symbolize God's all seeing presence.  Interesting - I just thought they were a symbol of beauty, vanity and pride - who knew! 

And the a peacock in a flourishing garden.  I have one of these on my bead table. I need to whip something up with it tomorrow for the Art Bead Scene challenge.

Growing Pains

I took a much needed break from blogging and my Etsy shop while I took care of some of the business of living.  And while I took a break, I found myself as busy as ever working on things behind the scenes.  It's not easy running an empire, so many details to attend to and manage.  I'm hoping to find ways to delegate more, outsource some tasks and eliminate others all together.  In all my busyness to make a living I so often forget to make a life.  I don't take time to connect, it's all work, work, work.  And while it's fun and the best work possible, I don't feel I'm always doing it right. 

So what is the right way to run a business?  I think I need to look at the end first, I have to ask myself, "What do I want this business to look like in 5 years from now, in a year from now?" And work backwards to make that happen.  I do know I don't want to be running things the same way I am now, that's for sure.  While I'm so very thankful for my success, if does come at too high a cost sometimes.  And more importantly I need to find ways to make more income without driving myself into an early grave.  Hence the quiet and the making of plans, thinking things through and taking stock.  It's not easy to stop and say, "Hey this isn't working for me, I need to find a better way to do this!"

The photos are from the snow storm that has reintroduced me to the term lake effect snow and I'm afraid I've turned into a hermit this week.  Winter is always lovelier from inside of your toasty home looking out!  But the thing about winter - it means spring is just around the corner...And I'm going to take that lesson for my business too, even through there are changes and growing pains right now, good things are going to start sprouting up and blooming soon. 

This is from my new line of jewelry that will be launching soon.  I can't wait to share it with you! 

A Year of Beads (Almost!)

I thought it would be fun to share the year of disk beads from the 2012 Bead of the Month Club.  Each month I would sit down with the color palette Brandi Hussey had created for the Art Bead Scene and mix up my colors.  From there I would make my disk beads.  We had 20 in the club this year and that's 200 beads a month and a whopping 2400 disk beads over the year! 

Well, it's almost a year in review - there were three months I haven't taken photos of and darn if they aren't packed away in those notorious five boxes I have left of beads to unpack.  I swear I will finish unpacking my studio before the New Year!

I had such a great time with each month's challenge but wasn't sure I was going to do a disk edition of the BOM Club again.  It was so much work.  But since several have asked about it I thought I would open it up to 10 subscriptions for 2013.  For the next year I have a list of my favorite paintings that I have hoped to interpret into beads for a while now.

You can find the BOM Club listing in my Etsy shop.